Short-term Mating Research Articles

Heat-hardening effects on mating success at high temperature in Drosophila melanogaster

Reproduction is strongly influenced by environmental temperature in insects. At high temperature, mating success could be influenced not only by basal (non-inducible) thermotolerance but also by inducible plastic responses. Here, mating success at high temperature was tested in flies carrying contrasting genotypes of heat resistance in Drosophila melanogaster. The possible heat-hardening effect was tested. Mating success did not differ between heat-resistant and heat-sensitive genotypes when tested both at high (33 °C) and benign (25 °C) temperature, independently of the heat-hardening status. Importantly, heat-hardening pre-treatment increased in a 70% the number of matings at 33 °C in a mass-mating experiment. Further, mating latency at 33 °C was shorter with heat hardening than without it in single-pair assays Heat-hardening had previously been showed to improve short-term thermotolerance in many organisms including Drosophila, and the present results show that heat hardening also improve mating success at elevated temperature. Previous exposures to a mild heat stress improve short-term mating success as a plastic response of ecological relevance. Such heat-hardening effects on mating success should be relevant for predicting potential evolutionary responses to any possible current scenery of global warming, as well as in sterile insect release programs for pest control in elevated temperature environments.

Automatic Associations and Conscious Attitudes Predict Different Aspects of Men’s Intimate Partner Violence and Sexual Harassment Proclivities

Intimate partner violence against women (IPV) and sexual harassment are both widespread. Research on their causes and attitudinal correlates has rarely examined implicit, automatic cognitive associations related to the partner (in IPV aggressors) or to women (in sexual harassment offenders). The aim of the present research was to study these implicit associations in 129 male German students. Participants completed scales of hostile sexism (HS), masculine gender role stress (MGRS), short-term (STMO) and long-term mating orientation (LTMO), and proclivity to both IPV and sexual harassment. Next they performed a primed lexical decision task that measured whether concepts of violence, power, hostility, and sexuality were differentially associated with representations of women, men, and the participant’s own intimate partner. Results showed that implicit associations of own partner with violence as well as hostility were generally high but did not correlate strongly with the proclivity measures. Furthermore, the proclivity measures were positively predicted by HS, MGRS, and STMO, whereas LTMO negatively predicted IPV proclivity. Practice implications point to the need to address early socialization processes that may shape men’s negative associations with female partners. Some strategies to prevent and reduce these types of implicit associations are discussed.

Mating and marketing

Mating motives, informed by an evolutionary perspective, are central to marketing and consumer behavior. Humans have an evolved menu of mating strategies that vary along a temporal continuum anchored by long-term committed mating (e.g., marriage) and short-term mating (e.g., one-night stands, brief affairs). Men and women, although similar in some ways, differ in their psychology of short-term and long-term mating in some respects. The proposed framework yields a four-quadrant matrix useful for more gender-specific and mating strategy-specific marketing—women's long-term, men's long-term, women's short-term, and men's short-term. Mating psychology within these quadrants include mate choice copying, error management, the sexual over-perception bias, cues to sexual exploitation, good-dad mate preferences, temporal discounting, and the psychology of opportunity costs. Discussion focuses on gender-specific marketing, market segmentation, implicit versus explicit mating cues, the importance of context, consumer's long-term interests, and the power of attention-grabbing mating cues for non-mating related products and consumer behavior.

Mate-by-Numbers: Budget, Mating Context, and Sex Predict Preferences for Facial and Bodily Traits

Unlike women, or men considering long-term mates, men pursuing short-term mating have shown a tendency to prioritize bodily information over facial information when assessing potential mates. Prior studies have documented this tendency across a variety of methods ranging from photograph ratings to forcing a choice between faces and bodies, but have yet to ask participants to prioritize individual traits in faces and bodies. The current study used a budget allocation method to do just that. We randomly assigned participants (N = 258) to a mating context (short-term or long-term) and a budget (high or low) and asked them to allocate points across 10 traits (five facial, five bodily) to design their ideal mate within their budget. As expected, men in the short-term mating context allocated more points to bodily traits, but only when in the low budget condition—in the high budget condition, men showed more interest in facial traits. Women, also as expected, and in contrast to men, showed a general trend toward favoring facial traits regardless of budget and condition. Overall, the results are consistent with the hypothesis that women’s bodies provide better information regarding immediate fertility and are thus more important for men to assess in short-term mating contexts.

Life History in a Postconflict Society : Violent Intergroup Conflict Facilitates Fast Life-History Strategy.

Previous theoretical accounts have predicted that warfare and intergroup conflict are environmental factors that contribute to the emergence of a fast life-history strategy. However, this assumption has never been directly empirically tested. We examined youth who grew up in a territory that experienced violent intergroup conflict and compared them with a control group (N = 215) on various life-history measures: age of first sexual intercourse, mating behavior, desired timing of marriage and first reproduction and desired number of children. We also measured other characteristics (family dysfunction and economic poverty) to explore the congruence between them and exposure to conflict. Participants from the postconflict society showed indications of faster life-history strategy: greater mating effort, a tendency to marry and have their first child sooner, and a larger desired number of children. Furthermore, interactions between exposure to conflict and participants' sex were found: females from a postconflict society want to have their child earlier, and males have elevated short-term mating success. Finally, the exposure to violent conflict turned out to have congruent effects with economic poverty but not troublesome family relations. The findings are in accordance with life-history theory and show the adaptiveness of human behavior related to fitness optimization in hostile and dangerous environments.

An integrative study of facultative personality calibration

Abstract The theory of facultative calibration, which explains personality differences as responses to variation in other phenotypic traits of individuals, received mixed results throughout the last years. Whereas there is strong evidence that individual differences in human behavior are correlated with the self-perception of other traits, it still needs to be questioned whether they are also adjusted to objective differences in body condition (i.e. formidability). In two independent studies (N1 = 119 men and 124 women, N2 = 165 men) we tested hypotheses of facultative personality calibration in an integrative way, assessing various outcomes of previous studies in the same samples (including Anger Proneness, Extraversion, Neuroticism, Narcissism, Shyness, Vengefulness, and Sociosexual Orientation). Formidability was derived from assessments of physical strength and various anthropometric measures from full-body 3D scans and paired with measures of self-perceived and other-rated physical attractiveness (based on rotating morphometric 3D body models and facial photographs). We could replicate positive correlations with self-perceived attractiveness across outcomes, though these were not corroborated by more objective assessments of attractiveness: an effect of other-rated attractiveness was clearly not supported in our results for either sex, regardless of the personality outcome. Anthropometric measures and physical strength were also largely unrelated to personality, with the exception of Extraversion, Utility of Personal Aggression, and Sociosexual Orientation. While the two samples differed in their results for domain-level Extraversion, at least the Extraversion facets Activity and Assertiveness were related to strength and masculinity in men. For Sociosexual Orientation the results of our two samples varied more substantially, a positive association was only present in Study 2. Future studies need to clarify whether formidability, potentially an indicator of genetic quality for males, enhances their orientation and success in short-term mating. Furthermore we propose longitudinal twin-difference studies as means to evaluate the theory of personality recalibration in a more controlled manner.

Who uses Tinder?: The Dark Triad traits, attachment, and mate value

Modern dating life has been changed with the advent of smartphone-based applications like Tinder. One way to identify who uses these applications is to compare the personality traits of users to non-users. In two brief studies (N = 581) we compared Tinder-users to non-users in individual differences associated with short-term mating (i.e., psychopathy, Machiavellianism, narcissism [the Dark Triad traits], and anxious attachment) and mate value. We revealed that the men who were Tinder users were especially high in psychopathy and narcissism and women who were Tinder users were especially high in anxious attachment and rated themselves as unsuccessful in finding relationship partners. While exploratory in nature, we suggest that men who are characterized by antisocial traits may use Tinder for opportunistic mating goals whereas women who have struggled to find relationships may use Tinder as a compensatory mating tactic.

Experimentally Inducing Disgust Reduces Desire for Short-Term Mating

Short-term mating strategies involve casual sex, multiple partners, and short-time intervals before initiating intercourse. Such strategies should be difficult to implement in the presence of high levels of sexual disgust. Researchers have therefore suggested—and found evidence for—the hypothesis that individuals with a stronger proclivity for short-term mating have lower levels of sexual disgust. Here, we suggest a related hypothesis: inducing sexual disgust should reduce desire for short-term mating. Experiment 1 (N = 341) and experiment 2 (N = 361) investigated the effects of disgust induction on desire for short-term mating. Both studies found that inducing disgust reduces desire for short-term mating, and that the effect of sexual disgust is particularly strong. These results support the novel hypothesis advanced here and corroborate the broader hypothesis that reduced sexual disgust is a previously undiscovered design feature of short-term mating strategies.

Birds of odd feather flock together? Assortative partner preferences, and attractiveness of schizotypy in long and short term partners

Although schizotypy has received much research interest, studies have largely ignored attractiveness and assortative mating for this trait. In an on-line study, participants (N = 170) rated high and low schizotypy vignettes for long and short term attractiveness. They also filled in the O-LIFE measure of schizotypy (Mason et al., 2005). For Unusual Experiences, and Cognitive Disorganisation, high vignettes received significantly lower ratings than the low vignettes in both short and long term mating context. In comparison to the low vignettes, high Impulsive Nonconformity vignettes had higher ratings as short term partners. We also found assortative preferences for Introvertive Anhedonia and Unusual Experiences. The findings support the idea that some of the schizotypy sub-traits could be part of an adaptive fast life history strategy.

Further evidence for associations between short-term mating strategy and sexual disgust

Al-Shawaf et al. (2015, Evolution & Human Behavior, 36, 199–205) found that people who were more interested in pursuing a short-term mating strategy (indexed by higher total scores on the Revised Sociosexual Orientation Inventory) reported less sexual disgust (indexed by lower scores on the sexual disgust subscale of the Three Domain Disgust Scale). By contrast with these results for sexual disgust, Al-Shawaf et al. (2015) observed no significant associations between interest in pursuing a short-term mating strategy and moral or pathogen disgust. This pattern of results, wherein sociosexuality correlates with lower sexual disgust but is unconnected to disgust more generally, may indicate specific cognitive adaptations that counter the possible disgust responses associated with engaging in short-term mating. Here we replicated Al-Shawaf et al.'s (2015) findings for sexual disgust and sociosexual orientation in a large sample (N = 7166). Although we found that individuals who were more interested in pursuing a short-term mating strategy reported significantly lower moral disgust, these relationships were very weak. Together, these results suggest a robust relationship between disgust and short-term mating that is relatively specific to sexual disgust.

Environmental Safety Threat Alters Mate Choice Processes in Humans: Further Evidence for the Environmental Security Hypothesis

The Environmental Security Hypothesis (ESH) proposes that an individual’s mate preferences should shift depending on how secure they perceive their surroundings to be. Here, we extend previous work by leading participants to believe they would be required to handle either a snake (threat condition) or tame rabbit (control condition) and measuring various aspects of mate selection. People in the threat condition reported a greater preference for bodies with a higher proportion of muscle versus fat. Women in the threat condition, but not men, reported a greater preference for more masculine-shaped faces and lower self-perceived mate value. Men in the threat condition, but not women, reported a significantly lower preference for Status-Resources and Warmth-Trustworthiness partner traits, and lower self-perceived social status. Finally, although we did not fully replicate previous findings with respect to short-term mating interest in women, men in the threat condition reported both a more favorable attitude towards short-term mating and a less favorable attitude towards long-term mating. Results are interpreted in line with a context-flexible view of psychological adaptations influencing human mate selection processes.

Mate Preferences and Their Behavioral Manifestations.

Evolved mate preferences comprise a central causal process in Darwin's theory of sexual selection. Their powerful influences have been documented in all sexually reproducing species, including in sexual strategies in humans. This article reviews the science of human mate preferences and their myriad behavioral manifestations. We discuss sex differences and sex similarities in human sexual psychology, which vary according to short-term and long-term mating contexts. We review context-specific shifts in mating strategy depending on individual, social, and ecological qualities such as mate value, life history strategy, sex ratio, gender economic inequality, and cultural norms. We review the empirical evidence for the impact of mate preferences on actual mating decisions. Mate preferences also dramatically influence tactics of mate attraction, tactics of mate retention, patterns of deception, causes of sexual regret, attraction to cues to sexual exploitability, attraction to cues to fertility, attraction to cues to resources and protection, derogation of competitors, causes of breakups, and patterns of remarriage. We conclude by articulating unresolved issues and offer a future agenda for the science of human mating, including how humans invent novel cultural technologies to better implement ancient sexual strategies and how cultural evolution may be dramatically influencing our evolved mating psychology.

Costly female appearance-enhancement provides cues of short-term mating effort: The case of cosmetic surgery

Across three studies, we explore the relationship between cosmetic surgery, which functions as a costly appearance-enhancement tactic, and women's short-term mating effort. Study 1 demonstrates that women who exert increased short-term mating effort are more accepting of costly appearance-enhancement techniques (i.e., cosmetic surgery), but not relatively low-cost appearance-enhancement techniques (i.e., facial cosmetics). Study 2 and 3 further show that both men and women use information regarding a female targets' cosmetic surgery usage to infer increased short-term mating effort. Moreover, Study 3 demonstrates that inferences of short-term mating effort do not differ as a function of whether the target received facial or body cosmetic surgery. The findings of the current research demonstrate that women's engagement in extreme beautification procedures can influence others' perceptions of their short-term mating effort.

Gossip as an intrasexual competition strategy: Predicting information sharing from potential mate versus competitor mating strategies

Abstract We propose that one function of competitive information sharing is success in intrasexual competition. We posit that the decision to share potentially damaging information about a competitor is sensitive to the probability of that information diminishing a competitor's mate value. According to Sexual Strategies Theory ( Buss & Schmitt, 1993 ), men and women have evolved different psychological mechanisms underlying short-term and long-term mating strategies, and display somewhat different (although partially overlapping) preferences for long-term and short-term mate choice. In two experiments, we utilized a 2 × 2 factorial within-subjects design to manipulate a potential mate's mating strategy (long-term vs. short-term) and characteristics of a rival indicative of the rival's mating strategy (long-term vs. short-term). We predicted that participants would be more likely to share information about a competitor when that information mismatched the potential mate's preferences, thereby decreasing the perceived mate value of the competitor. Using Linear Mixed Effects Modeling, Study 1 found that men and women reported that they would be more likely to share that a competitor was promiscuous when the potential mate was interested in a long-term mate than when the potential mate was interested in a short-term mate. Study 2 demonstrated similar findings for ratings of effectiveness of sharing the information. Taken together, the two studies support the central hypothesis about the role of negative information sharing in intrasexual competition and the context-specificity of its deployment depending on mating strategy pursued.

That's what she said! Perceived mate value of clean and dirty humor displays

Humor is considered a valuable trait when evaluating potential mates, and women demonstrate a preference for men's ability to produce humor. Humor displays as a male mating strategy appear context-dependent, which suggests that women's preferences for certain humor may be contingent on their mating goals. One dimension of humor variability that could approximate men's long- (LTM) or short-term (STM) mating goals is communication of humor that is categorically clean or dirty, respectively, which could influence the humorists' desirability to women. Such displays may differentially signal sexual receptivity. Two studies tasked women with indicating interest in men who generated either clean or dirty humor. Across both studies clean humor producers were preferred when evaluating both the long- and short-term desirability of men, although this preference was larger for LTM evaluations. Study 2 also demonstrated that sociosexually unrestricted women (i.e., those with more permissive sexual attitudes) self-reported greater behavioral attraction toward dirty humorists, a preference mediated by their perceptions of dirty jokes as funnier. Dirty humor production in men and appreciation in women may facilitate respective STM goals. Results of this research provide further evidence that the specific mating context determines the appropriateness of humor use when used as a relational display.

Life History, Fertility, and Short-Term Mating Motivation.

The current research examines the impact of women's early-life socioeconomic status (SES; used as a proxy measure of life history strategy), relationship status, and ovulatory cycle phase on their desire for short-term mating. Results revealed that during the periovulatory phase (i.e., the high-fertility phase of the monthly ovulatory cycle), single women from low SES environments expressed an increased desire for short-term mating, whereas the opposite was found for single women from high SES environments. No such pattern was found for partnered women. These results suggest that one's early-life environment and relationship status may play a key role in how women respond to internal fertility cues, providing important new insights into factors that may moderate ovulatory shifts in mating behavior. Results provide some of the first evidence that one's developmental history may alter the expression of ovulatory cycle adaptations.

You're not my type: Do conservatives have a bias for seeing long-term mates?

Abstract When choosing a mate, humans favour genetic traits (attractiveness, high sex drive) for short-term relationships and parental traits (warmth, high status) for long-term relationships. These preferences serve to maximise fitness of future offspring. But this model neglects the role of social norms in shaping evolved mating strategies. For example, in conservative cultures, individuals are likely to face costs such as punishment for short-term mating. Here we show that conservatives over-perceive some mates' suitability as long-term partners. Study 1 found that conservatives were less likely to use a short-term strategy that was distinctive from their long-term strategy. Study 2 showed that conservatives over-perceived hypothetical mates as long-term investing partners, despite their lack of commitment-compatible traits. Conservatism was measured at the regional- (India, USA, UK) and individual-level. Our results demonstrate how social norms may bias behaviour. We anticipate our findings to be a starting point for more sophisticated models, drawing on developments from evolutionary and social psychology.

Are Men’s Religious Ties Hormonally Regulated?

Studies based on the “challenge hypothesis” have linked men’s androgens—testosterone and DHEA—to short term mating and antisocial behaviors. Causal direction at a given stage of the life cycle remains ambiguous. Religion is a major social institution through which actions violating social norms are controlled. Thus, ties to this institution may be lower among men with higher androgen levels. The present study queried these linkages. Data were from the 2005–2006 and 2010–2011 waves of the National Social Life, Health and Aging Project (NSHAP), a national probability sample of older U.S. adults. Analysis was through autoregressive cross-lagged panel models (minimum N = 1071). Higher baseline levels of both testosterone and DHEA prospectively predicted religious ties, whether measured through attendance at services or network connections to clergy. Moreover, contrary to arguments of sociocultural modulation of androgens, the pattern of associations was most consistent with hormonal causation of religious connections. Results were robust to a range of time invariant and time varying confounders, including demographics, hormone supplements, and physical health. Findings add to the growing evidence that religiosity may have physiological and not simply psychosocial roots. Implications for hormonal confounding of previously published religion-deviance linkages, and for neuroendocrine underpinnings of population-level social and cultural patterns, are discussed.

Love, Sex, and Personality Pathology: A Life History View of Personality Pathologies and Sociosexuality

Love and sex are fundamental needs of most people, yet little research has examined such aspects of life in relation to personality pathologies. We examined the associations between pathological personality traits (i.e., negative affectivity, disinhibition, antagonism, psychoticism, and detachment) and sociosexuality (i.e., short-term mating orientation, long-term mating orientation, and sexual behavior) among 702 university students. In addition, we examined the mediating role of life history speed and tested whether sex moderated the associations that these pathological personality traits had with sociosexuality. Detachment, antagonism, disinhibition, and psychoticism had positive associations with short-term mating interests and negative associations with long-term mating interests. Life history speed mediated the associations that detachment and disinhibition had with short-term mating orientation and long-term mating orientation. Although sex did moderate the association that negative affectivity had with previous sexual behavior, we found no evidence that these mediational processes differed between men and women. Results are discussed in terms of the way personality traits shape the sociosexuality of men and women using a life history paradigm.

Creative Casanovas: Mating Strategy Predicts Using—but Not Preferring—Atypical Flirting Tactics

Although flirting behaviors tend to be covert, subtle signals of sexual interest, people are routinely able to employ and decipher such signals successfully to attract mates. Flirting research often focuses on the accuracy of interpreting flirting signals, but the creation and employment of flirting signals has been understudied. The present set of studies examined whether mating strategy would impact preferences for typical or atypical flirting behaviors. In study 1, we conducted an act nomination followed by two rounds of pilot testing to generate a set of flirting behaviors rated on typicality and effectiveness (total N = 416). For study 2, participants (N = 396) read scenarios in which an opposite sex individual showed sexual interest in them, and then chose a response from a set of flirting behaviors that varied in typicality. Consistent with our hypothesis, pursuing a short-term mating strategy was associated with selecting more atypical behaviors. Finally, study 3 explored whether short-term mating would also be associated with preferring atypical flirting behaviors when one is the target rather than the initiator. Participants (N = 486) responded to the same scenarios and flirting behavior options as in study 2 but this time selected which flirting behavior would be most attractive to them as the target. Interestingly, the relationship between mating strategy and typicality of flirting behaviors disappeared; almost all participants preferred the initiator to use the most typical flirting behavior. The apparent mismatch for short-term maters between flirting strategies employed and preferred is discussed.